Recent development of information technology (IT) has a great influence on the vehicle industry. Various IT technologies are involved in vehicles.
Particularly, a vehicle pairing technology, which is interlocked with a communication device such as a smartphone to provide various services, is receiving great attention.
Generally, when a vehicle starts, a Bluetooth function of an in-vehicle head unit having a Bluetooth hands-free function is automatically enabled, and as a result, the in-vehicle head unit enters a pairing standby mode. At this time, a driver selects a pairing operation of a menu in the in-vehicle head unit and the smartphone to perform a pairing operation. When the pairing operation is completed, the driver may have a telephone conversation in a hands-free state.
In-vehicle Bluetooth pairing operation is easily adapted as the result of generalization of the Bluetooth technology. However, users who are unskilled in the Bluetooth technology may have difficulty in performing such a complicated pairing procedure.
The in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing technology is connected directly with vehicle safety features and provides user convenience during driving. For these reasons, in North America, vehicles are available with Bluetooth.
The driver needs to manually perform a complicated pairing procedure, including registering a new phone for Bluetooth communication or deleting a registered phone, which inconveniences the driver.
Particularly, in a conventional Bluetooth technology, when it is necessary to connect a new device before connection to an existing device is completed, the connection to the existing device must be completed, the completed connection must be released, and the connection to the new device must be commenced. Completion of the Bluetooth connection means a final success or failure of the connection under progress.
Generally, Bluetooth communication is based on a point-to-point communication mode. Consequently, it is possible to connect several devices at once. In addition, when connection to the new device is attempted after the Bluetooth connection is commenced, completion of the existing connection under progress must be waited for. This is because, if the Bluetooth function of the in-vehicle head unit is disabled during connection or the connection under progress is canceled, a paired device may be in an abnormal state due to an unexpected phenomenon. In this case, the device may have difficulty in a subsequent attempt at connection.
A conventional in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing procedure will be described in brief with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating a conventional in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing procedure. Reference numeral 1a denotes a Bluetooth pairing procedure performed in an in-vehicle head unit, and reference numeral 1b denotes a Bluetooth pairing procedure performed in a user device.
Referring to reference numeral 1a, when a user starts a vehicle (i.e. ACC ON), in-vehicle head unit (H/U) starts an automatic Bluetooth pairing procedure (S101). At this time, the in-vehicle head unit enters a phone mode to attempt to pair with a designated or registered user device, e.g. a driver's smartphone (S103). In addition, a user interface screen showing that connection to a specific device may be attempted and displayed on a display screen of the in-vehicle head unit.
When the pairing procedure, which is automatically performed after starting of the vehicle, is canceled by the user, the in-vehicle head unit may sequentially enter a setup menu and a phone menu to configure and display a user interface screen, including a menu for registering a new user device or selecting one of registered user devices, which will hereinafter be referred to as a “device registration selection screen” for the convenience of description (S105 to 109). At this time, the user may designate a user device for pairing according to a menu selection on the device registration selection screen. In addition, a guide message indicating enablement of a Bluetooth function of the user device for pairing may be displayed on the display screen of the in-vehicle head unit.
Referring to reference numeral 1b, a Bluetooth function may be enabled according to a guide message displayed on a screen of the user device (S111).
When the Bluetooth function of the user device is enabled by the user, the user device may search for surrounding devices that are capable of performing Bluetooth pairing and display the search result on the screen (S113).
When the user selects a vehicle based on the search result, the user device transmits a connection request signal to the selected vehicle (S115). At this time, a passkey input screen for inputting a passkey value corresponding to the selected vehicle may be displayed on the screen of the user device.
Upon receiving the connection request signal from the user device, the in-vehicle head unit may display vehicle information and the passkey value on the screen.
When the passkey value is input to the passkey input screen, the user device transmits the passkey value to the in-vehicle head unit. Determining that the received passkey value is identical to a passkey value of the in-vehicle head unit, the in-vehicle head unit may transmit a approval completion message indicating that the connection request has been approved to the user device (S117).
FIG. 2 is a view illustrating a user interface screen output to the in-vehicle head unit during the conventional Bluetooth pairing procedure.
Referring to FIG. 2, when the user starts the vehicle and an automatic pairing procedure starts, the in-vehicle head unit may output an automatic connection screen informing that Bluetooth connection to a specific user device is being performed (S201).
At this time, when the user clicks a cancel button 200 on the automatic connection screen to cancel the automatic pairing, the in-vehicle head unit may display a screen for registering or selecting a device for pairing (S203 and S205).
Subsequently, when the device for pairing is designated by the user, the in-vehicle head unit may display a Bluetooth connection guide message indicating enablement of a Bluetooth function of the designated device on the screen (S207).
At this time, the user may enable the Bluetooth function of the designated device according to the Bluetooth connection guide message.
Subsequently, when the user clicks an OK button 210, the in-vehicle head unit displays a vehicle name and a passkey value to be used to register a new device on the screen and enters a pairing standby state (S209). When a cancel button 220 is selected in the pairing standby state, the in-vehicle head unit may finish the pairing procedure.
In another example, a conventional in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing method using a pairing application may be used.
The user may download a pairing application from the internet and install the pairing application in the user device. The pairing procedure is substantially identical to the in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing procedure shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. When the pairing application is driven, however, devices registered by the pairing application and available devices, such as a vehicle, a Bluetooth headset, a smartphone, and a mobile phone, are searched, and the user may select and add the available devices to a registered device list.
In the in-vehicle Bluetooth pairing method using the pairing application, however, the pairing application must be downloaded and installed in the user device. Furthermore, the pairing application may not be compatible with all devices. For example, a specific pairing application may be operated only in devices based on an Android operation system. In addition, the number of the user manipulation steps for pairing in the in-vehicle head unit is not reduced even with the pairing application.
When the vehicle driver wishes to perform Bluetooth pairing with a new user device after starting the vehicle as described above, it is necessary to sequentially perform the step of entering the phone mode on the in-vehicle head unit, the step of canceling the automatic pairing procedure, the step of entering the setup menu, the step of entering the phone menu, and the step of selecting the device for pairing.
In order to prevent the above problems, therefore, the conventional Bluetooth communication is designed, such that after pairing completed, a user directly disconnects the device and then commences a new device registration procedure.